I have been a pastoral painter (one engaged with many aspects of the landscape) for my entire 54 year old career. And for the past twenty years I have been an arts activist mainly concerned with, and depicting, our endangered environment. As a native Floridian, I have long been enamored by the Everglades, first exploring them under sail in 1965 and becoming aware of their fragile, threatened status . In 2000, the federal government realized how serious the water problem in the glades was and passed the nearly $8 billion Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plant to address this complicated issue. I recognized the national attention as an opportunity to get artists and writers involved and started the Artist In Residence In Everglades (AIRIE) in the Everglades National Park. In 2001, it became the 28th program in a national park to allow artists and writers to create in our official wilderness preserves. ...Although I live and work in the heart of Manhattan's Soho, my soul belongs to the Everglades. As my Heroine, Marjory Stoneman Douglas, expressed in her Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Sea of Grass, there is no other place like it on earth.